


A Comfort

by GoldStarGrl



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: F/M, Light BDSM, M/M, Nobody is Dead, Pain Kink, Post-Movie, Spanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-25 00:21:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21108407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldStarGrl/pseuds/GoldStarGrl
Summary: "A child weaned on poison considers harm a comfort." – Gillian Flynn, Sharp ObjectsEddie, as usual, thinks there's something seriously wrong with him.





	A Comfort

**i.**

He’s been conscious he was small since before he ever had the words for it. He wore shoes and shorts from the toddler section until he was eight. When family would visit, his grandmother would call him _ się malutki__, _tiny one.

He knows he’s only twelve, that a lot of boys don’t hit their growth spurt until the 10th or 11th grade. “There’s still time, Mrs. Kaspbrak,” the pediatrician said the last time his mom took him to get checked for malnutrition. 

_ There’s still time_. Eddie tried to remember that. But later wasn’t the fucking issue. It was the right now that was giving him trouble. Because being little also makes him incredibly easy to knock down.

“What are you looking at, faggot?” One of the older boys – not Bowers, but someone who ran with his crew sometimes, snapped at him as he was coming down the front steps after school. Bill still hadn’t come back to school, Stan was staying after to make up a math test, and Mrs. Tozier took Richie out after fifth period to go to the optometrist (he’d snapped his glasses,_ again _) so Eddie was alone.

He always felt small, when he was alone. 

“Nothing,” Eddie mumbled, and tried to rush down the stairs. The boy – Todd, that was his name – easily outpaced him, reaching the bottom of the stone steps and blocking his way. On reflex, Eddie felt his hand around his inhaler. Todd knocked it out of his hands as he tried to bring it to his lips. 

“You use that to practice sucking cock?” His hand pushed down on the top of Eddie’s head, and his knees hit the cement, stinging. He knew he’s just spilt the skin. “You gonna suck my cock?”

“Fuck you!” Eddie tried to wriggle away. Todd’s grip tightened on his hair, pulling hard. A pain seared across his scalp. Eddie closed his eyes.

“Hey!” Mrs. Medina’s sharp, Boston accent cut through the air. She was standing in the threshold of the front entrance. “You two knock it off, or it’s detention!”

Todd released his grip on Eddie, backed away with both hands raised in mock innocence. Mrs. Medina clicked her tongue and rolled her eyes, turning back into the front hall. Eddie didn’t move until he was sure Todd was down the street and couldn’t see him anymore. 

Then he jumped up and ran for home as fast as he could. Mommy was gonna freak when she saw his knees all scraped up and bloody, but that wasn’t the only reason he felt dread in his veins.

His stomach felt funny, when he got pushed down like that. When he got his hair pulled. Kind of like butterflies, like the way it did when Dora Denbo wore that sundress that left her shoulders bare, or when he saw those nudie magazines covers that the video store was supposed to cover with black paper but never did, the _Playboys_ he wasn’t supposed to look at and the _ Playgirls _ he _ definitely _ wasn't supposed to look at.

Maybe he _ was _ sick. 

  
**ii.**

Bev kisses him when they’re sitting on the Toziers’ porch one Saturday night in the 10th grade. 

The Losers spent the night reveling in an entire house to themselves the way only dorky kids who’ve already had enough thrills for a life could; eating pizza and sneaking Maggie’s old bottles of chardonnay. None of them much liked the taste of except for Stan, but it got them buzzed like it was supposed to, and in when you’re sixteen in rural Maine, that had to be enough.

Richie, of course, cranked his music as loud as it could go on the clock radio he’d gotten for his last birthday. None of his friends stopped to appreciate his taste, and Eddie yelled at him to turn it down so they could continue their conversations without screaming. 

Bill and Mike were arguing about who was hotter, Halle Berry or Sandra Bullock. Usually they didn’t bring up girls in front of Bev, since her and Bill's childhood fling slowly but unceremoniously fizzled out, but the alcohol had loosened their tongues and boiled them down to their base teenage boy instincts. _ No way, you see her in that Flintstones movie? She was gorgeous. Yeah, but in Speed, Sandra Bullock was h-h-hot but also ki-ki-ki-kicked ass. _

Richie tolerated this, in the music-less silence, for about thirty seconds.

“This is so lame!” He declares, vaulting himself over the couch with an odd sort of grace. Eddie swears every day he gets taller and more gangly. By next month, he'd be made entirely of arms and legs. “What kind of party is this if no one’s getting laid?”

“If you’re really that desperate, you can go fuck yourself,” Eddie says mildly, and Bev lets out a loud, involuntary chuckle, pressing the back of her hand against her mouth too late to stop it. Richie makes a rude gesture at him, and hops onto the table, shaking the plates and plastic cups as he sits cross legged in between Ben and Bill’s half-eaten pizza crusts.

“Someone tell me a dirty story, then. Billiam?” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively. It’s a fair hit. Bill’s the only one of them whose ever had a real girlfriend, and even before Mary-Anne, when they were still little, He had Bev. Eddie saw them kissing, Bill riding around on Silver while she hung on, balancing on the spokes of his bike.

He wonders what that would be like, having someone to hang onto, and rest your head against their back. Feeling that safe. 

“F-f-f-f-f-” Bill tries, and he doesn’t stutter so much now, usually, but when he’s drunk all bets are off. They all know what he’s getting at anyway.

“I second that,” Mike says with an eye roll, and Bill laughs, beating the skipping record of his tongue.

“Don’t want to share with the class, Mikey? Jeez, when did you all get so uppity about getting your dicks wet?” Richie glances over at Eddie, and stares at him for a second before startling himself out of it. “Not even gonna bother asking Mr. Never-Been-Kissed over there.”

“I have too!” Ben says, with knee-jerk indignation.

“I was talking about Eds,” Richie said. Everyone looks at Eddie for confirmation, but he can’t really focus. All the blood in his body seemed to be rushing to his head, past his ears, making his face feel hot. _ That was private, _ he tries to say. _ That was a secret I told you, asshole, _but he just opens his mouth and sits there gaping like an idiot.

Mike puts down his wine, seeing Eddie’s expression. “Beep beep, Richie.”

“What, I just–”

Eddie pushes his chair back from the table with an awkward screech. “I gotta get some air. I think this crust has egg whites in it, you guys know that upsets my stomach.”

He lets his legs dangle off the porch, looking out over the Tozier's front lawn. The cool October air does feel good on his skin. He takes a puff of his inhaler, lets the cool sting of the spray coat his throat. Tries to calm down. 

“Are you gonna die if I smoke?”

Bev sits down next to him, already lighting a cigarette before he can answer. Eddie watches the smoke float away from them, across the grass before huffing “He’s such a dick.”

Bev shrugs. “I think…he feels different from the rest of you guys sometimes, and it makes him angry.” 

“What? Different how?”

She blows a smoke ring, and Eddie knows he’s almost an adult, but he’s still so impressed by this trick. Even if it causes lung cancer. “For what it’s worth, no one thinks any less of you, for not…” another drag, another exhale. “It’ll happen when it happens.”

“I don’t want it to just _ happen_. I don’t need it to be romantic, or whatever.” Eddie shakes his head, and crosses his arms over his chest. He borrowed one of the other boys’ sweatshirts off the couch when he got cold earlier, and the sleeves are flopping over his hands. “I just want to get it over with, you know? With someone I know won’t give me mono or transmit mouth herpes.” 

Bev holds the cigarette away from her face, down by her navel. “I could do it right now, if you want.”

Eddie swivels towards her so quickly he almost loses his balance and falls off the porch. Bev puts out a hand to steady him. “I...um…”

“Just if you want to see what it feels like.” She fixes him with the intense, blue-eye stare, and he tries not to squirm under her lazer gaze. “But if you want to wait for a boy, I won’t tell anyone.”

Eddie’s face was just starting to cool down, and now it flamed right back up, more intense than before. Goddammit it, how did she figure it out? Was it the way he moved his hands? His voice? What did he do to slip up? He has no poker face, he’s always shown every plight in his eyes and tensed-up body. Of course someone noticed what he was. At least it was Bev and not Richie, he’d never let him live it down. 

“I like girls,” he blurts out, because he does, and then, in a very quiet voice, adds “...too.”

Bev smiles. She puts out her cigarette on the wooden planks between them. “Close your eyes,” she says. 

Eddie does what he’s told. 

Bev is taking a deep breath, and letting it out, and he realizes she’s clearing the smoke from her body, so she doesn’t choke him, and he’s filled with such love for his friend that he forgets to be scared in his anticipation and–

She kisses him. Softly. Everything that was weighing him down in his stomach and on his shoulders lifts, and he feels light. 

He braces his hands against the porch behind him, letting himself sink back a little under her touch. His elbows buckle and he falls onto his back, dragging her down with him in an awkward, still kissing swoop. She makes a little squeak in surprise, digging her nails into his face to steady herself after suddenly going horizontal. His stomach - and his cock - thrill a little at the sting. 

He wants to be touching more, wants her all over him, on top of him, he wants–

“want you to hurt me,” the words bubble up. But it comes out in garbled, breathless nonsense in Bev’s mouth, and she pulls back. She doesn’t look mad. She didn't really hear what he said. The lovely weight of her body is still pressing down on him. 

She sits up straight, squeezes his shoulder. “See? Not so scary.” 

He nods without speaking, and stays sprawled on the porch for a long time after she goes back inside.

Not scary in the way she was talking about. He was still plenty terrified of what he wanted.

**iii.**

He wakes up in a confused, groggy haze at 3 AM in his dark apartment. He doesn’t need the bathroom, he doesn’t think he had a nightmare. This sometimes happens, as happened since...since he was a teenager? Earlier? It’s a little blurry. Out of nowhere, he just starts awake, ready to fight something that isn’t there. 

Nothing is wrong, though. Inhale, exhale, list the things he sees around him like Dr. Calinda told him to. He’s in bed, in his floppy, flannel button-up pajamas, Myra sleeping soundly next to him. She’s got her arm wrapped around Eddie’s waist, tight for someone who isn’t conscious. Like she’s afraid he’ll disappear in the night. 

He shifts, trying to get comfortable, but her grip pulls him back. Holds him in place. A warm feeling rises in his stomach, and this time it’s not fear. He _ likes _ it, likes feeling held, feeling a little controlled. 

He knows what the word _ masochist _means, what he couldn’t find as a teenager. He’s thirty-six years old, he’s been around the block. Well, kind of. He had two girlfriends before Myra, and one aborted night of kissing and hand stuff with a boy in his dorm when he was twenty, before he got terrified of AIDS halfway through and excused himself to the bathroom, never to return. 

About three years earlier, right after he got married, he went to his general physician because he was worried he was somehow developing an allergy to the sun. Dr. Rindayski stared at him in silence for ten full seconds before turning to her computer and referring him to a Dr. Calinda. 

Eddie thought he was a specialist. Perfect, he loved specialists, felt at home when someone was running tests, taking in all his allergies and ailments with fresh eyes. But when he got to Dr. Calinda’s office on the Upper East Side, there was no sterile exam table or rubber gloves, just a large, cushy green couch and several wall hangings depicting trees during different seasons. 

Ah. A psychiatrist. Fine. He’ll play ball. It was one session.

“When you were a child, did anyone ever hurt you, or tell you sex was bad?” Dr. Calinda asks during appointment number 34. They were talking about his mother, and then about his brief relationships with women and men, and then about how Dr. Calinda thinks he’s sexually dysfunctional. Eddie has no idea how they got here.

“I...don’t think so?” These appointments were really making him start to realize how little he recalls of his life before he started college. “I don’t remember.”

Dr. Calinda looks at him over the large, square glasses Eddie’s always liked. “You don’t _ remember? _”

Eddie knows where this is going, sighs and digs a clenched fist into the side of his leg. “No, not like–I don’t think I got raped or anything. I’m not repressing something.”

Dr. Calinda makes a note on the legal pad in front of him. Eddie feels himself getting annoyed.

“I’m very normal, okay?” He blurts out. “We have sex twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays after _ Wheel of Fortune,_ that’s more than a lot of married people.”

“You schedule sex?”

“I’m busy!”

Dr. Calinda writes down something else. “Ed,” he says, and Eddie fucking hates that, it’s not so hard to struggle all the way to the end of his already shortened name. “I think that you’re only experiencing a very limited part of your sexual identity. Whether it’s due to an incident in your childhood – it might not be,” he added off of Eddie’s glare. “Or just general anxiety, I think it would be helpful for you try to shake up your routine a little.”

Eddie had stewed the whole drive back to his apartment, but the words stuck with him. He knows he has kind of a pain thing. Kind of a domination thing. But none of the women he’s taken to bed know any of this. He could barely allude to it in front of a doctor, much less someone who mattered. What if they thought he was a deviant? What if he was? This desperate urge to get put in his place was a sign something really was wrong with him? 

Eddie squirms a little, turns as best he can so they’re lying face-to-face. “Honey?”

Myra yawns, squinting at him in the dark. She has always been a light sleeper. “What’s wrong? It’s the middle of the night.”

Eddie leans in and kisses her, presses up against her, rolling his hips experimentally. He wants her to hang onto him tighter, overpower him. Their scheduled routine means he never has to ask for anything different. He never _gets_ to ask for anything different. The thought of asking makes him want to sink through the floor, and he pleads, silently, to her to just _ get _him.

“What’s gotten into you?” Myra asks, pulling away. She presses her hand against his forehead. “You’re flushed.” 

“Nothing.” He says, and he can roll onto his back, now. She’s let him go.

“Let me get you a damp cloth.”

“I’m fine, hon.”

“You’re beet red!”

“It’s hot in here, go back to sleep.”

**iv.**

Well, the good news is that Richie’s hands have stopped shaking during sex. 

Eddie never thought he’d see it, not just sex with someone besides Myra, sex after the seventy-four staples in his chest and nine months of physical therapy. Not just sex with Richie goddamn Tozier. But _ nervous _ sex. Because, in a revelation surprising to no one with a brain, Richie hasn’t actually had a lot of it. 

Eddie suspected, of course. Suspected when they were teenagers, suspected when he saw Richie’s overly-vulgar act on TV. But he had no idea the situation was this dire, that apart from a handful of blowjobs and an unpleasant attempt at cunnilingus on a sort-of-girlfriend, he was about five feet to the left of being a fucking virgin. 

He mocks Richie, a little, of course. He has to, owes it to mortified 16-year-old Eddie, beating himself up for being the only one in their grade without a first kiss. But then Richie’s jaw gets tight and his eyes get too bright and Eddie pulls back. “Take it easy, Trashmouth.”

Richie blushes, all the time. When they’re making out like teenagers on the sofa, when Eddie squeezes his ass early morning in bed, when he puts his hands on Richie's waist and moves him slightly to the left so he can get at the medicine cabinet in his shitty post-divorce apartment. Richie fuckin’ Tozier turns _ red _and looks askance when Eddie holds his hand over the console when they’re sitting in traffic.

He gets very quiet in bed. More than once something in his eyes has just blinked out, completely stunned and lost, like he can’t believe this is actually happening and he has no clue what he’s supposed to do next. Not that he’d ever admit to any of this, but Eddie feels that knowing someone since you were both six means you get pretty good at interpreting their body language.

And that’s fine with Eddie. It is. He can’t remember the last time he was the more experienced one in a relationship. It’s not like he doesn’t enjoy long, slow sessions of making love, stopping every few minutes to argue about something stupid, like Richie leaving fucking Pop-Tart crumbs all over the place. (”That’s how you get ants, dipshit!”) He doesn’t mind always being on top because Richie is weirdly nervous about it in a way he tries to cover with jokes (“I don’t want to crack you in half with my monster dick, Eds, you’re just too small to take it”). 

Really, it’s fine. He's happier than he's been in forever, so what if sex is a little boring? A slight tinge of disappointment has always covered his life.

So Richie’s only recently stopped looking slightly shell shocked by their burgeoning relationship when he sneaks up behind Eddie in the kitchen one snowy February night. Eddie’s chopping up peppers on the counter when he feels a pair of ridiculously long arms wrapping around his waist.

“Jesus!” He swings around with the knife still in his hand and Richie hits the dirt, missing getting the top strands of his hair sliced off by millimeters.

“What the fuck, Eds?” He asks, still crouched on the floor.

“You can’t just sneak up on me like that! You are one of like six fucking people on this planet who knows why you shouldn’t do that!”

“Well I didn’t think you were going to go Xena Warrior Princess on me!” Richie stands up now, perhaps remembering the size advantage he has. 

“You’re supposed to be in LA until next week!”

“My agent pushed my meeting up to Wednesday so I came in early! Why are we still shouting?” 

They _ are _ still yelling, Eddie realizes, and he’s still clutching the knife like he’s ready to stab through Richie’s face at any second, and the whole scene is a little too much for a work night. He scoffs to himself and leans onto the balls of his feet (not his tip-toes, shut the fuck up) to press a kiss to Richie’s jaw. 

“Hi,” he says at a normal volume. 

Richie gives him a sort of crooked half-smile. “Hi.”

Eddie waves vaguely for him to sit at the kitchen table and goes back to cutting vegetables, his heartbeat slowing. 

Richie doesn’t sit, though. He presses up against Eddie’s back, arms firmer around him now. He shifts a little against Eddie’s ass and Eddie can feel a stirring, someone on their way to half-hard and then more.

“Nothing like a seven-hour flight to get you in the mood, huh?” Eddie smirks. Richie kisses his neck. 

“Yeah, you know JetBlue makes me horny as fuck.” Another kiss, just below the earlobe and Eddie let out an involuntary hum. “See, knew you were glad to see me.” He smacks Eddie’s ass with a hard, open palm. 

Eddie drops the knife on the counter with a clatter and sucks in sharply through his teeth, feeling the sting spread. 

“Whoa,” Richie says. “You okay?”

“Do it again,” Eddie says, all in a rush, face turning red, because fuck it, if he couldn’t ask now, couldn’t ask Richie, after all that had happened, he was never going to be able to. 

There is a pause. He feels Richie’s breath on the side of his face but he can't see his expression. His heart is in his throat.

“Yeah?” Richie angles himself a little to the left to get the space to spank Eddie again. He moans at the second hit, lets his chin drop against his chest, braces his hands against the counter. “Always knew you were a little freak, Eds.”

“_Shut up_,” Eddie tries to say, but it comes out a little breathier than he’d like, and Richie lands two more hard slaps on either thigh. His palms are getting sweaty against the counter. Richie isn’t being gentle. He never does anything in half-measures, including an impromptu ass beating. It _ hurts_, and Eddie’s never been turned on so quickly in his life. 

He’s still wearing his suit from work, minus the jacket and with his sleeves rolled up for cooking. He manages to get one of his hands up and fumbling with his belt, unlooping it and dropping it on the floor.

“Jesus Christ, no hangers? Who are you–” another smack, the sting followed by the pulsating warmth spreading across his ass, “–and what have you done with Eddie?”

Richie gets down his pants, gets down his boxers, pooling in a wrinkled mess on the floor in a way Eddie knows he’ll hate soon, but not right now. He takes six more hits – the pain is so much sharper on his bare ass, so much _ better _– before Richie decides he’s had enough and squeezes his arms around him again. 

“Wanna fuck you,” he mumbles into the nape of Eddie’s neck. He feels a bolt of lighting running through his core.

“You sure?” Eddie’s the one shaking now, barely able to keep standing, precum leaking from his cock and smearing against the lower cabinets. “I didn’t think you–”

“Don’t move,” Richie commands, and Eddie doesn’t, feels his shirt starting to stick to the small of his back. He hears Richie digging through the nightstand in Eddie’s bedroom. “Did you move the fucking lube?” 

“Why would I have done that?” Eddie shouts back, still bent over the counter. 

“Because you have many, many lovers and you only fuck them in the shower, to preserve the sanctity of our– found it!” Richie came bounding back into the kitchen. “Christ, that’s a gorgeous fucking red. I didn’t think your ass could get any better looking, but, wow.”

“Dude, stop with the poetry and fuck me,” Eddie said through gritted teeth. Richie gives him another slap, lighter, more playful, and it sends another jolt of arousal straight to his dick.

“Look who thinks he’s in charge,” he can hear the lube bottle squeezing, and then Richie’s fingers are dancing around his entrance, pressing into him slowly but firmly.

“Says the guy who doesn’t even need to use condoms because I’m the only person he’s ever fuck–_ fuck_.” Richie curls his long, thin finger inside of him, and he’d done this a handful of times to himself but never had someone looming over him, pushing in a second finger, and then the third, completely at their mercy. There’s a split second of pain, stretching, and then he just feels _ good, _ full, he moans. It sounds so loud and embarrassing in his tidy little kitchen. He tries to swallow the sound.

He feels a sharp tug on the roots of his hair, Richie’s free hand pulling his head back. “Don’t pussy out on me now, Kaspbrak. Make some noise.”

So he does, and Richie rewards him with another yank on his hair. 

When he pushes into Eddie, the bravado falters, for a second, He goes slow, his grip relaxes and drops to gently rest on Eddie’s shoulder. Even in his haze of pain and pleasure, Eddie realizes – remembers – that this is Richie’s first time fucking anyone, at least on the giving end. He feels bad that it’s in his kitchen, while he’s staring down at a bunch of half cut red peppers.

“We can do this in the bedroom, if you want,” He manages. He has a half formed idea of candles, maybe, or at least a bed. Making it special, as much as the two of them can make anything special.

“Fuck off,” Richie says, reading his mind. Eddie twists his head around and kisses him. Richie closes his eyes, exhales into it. He still turns a little pink.

And then he threads his hand through Eddie’s hair again, pushes his face against the counter and fucks his brains out. The snap of his hips against Eddie’s still sensitive red ass send another little thrill of pain to every thrust, and Eddie is dizzy on the smell of lemon disinfectant and it’s not long before he’s coming down the front of his own legs, striping the cabinets he’s going to have to spend all of tomorrow cleaning. 

He shudders, closes his eyes and buries his already squished face into the crook of his arm. Richie’s breath is getting ragged and uneven behind him, and forty-five seconds after Eddie comes, he goes too, collapsing into Eddie’s back, trying to pull himself back together. 

His stamina_ is _ improving.

“Fuck. Fuck, Rich. That was insane. Thank you.” Eddie mumbles, and he feels too liquid to move right now, he could live like this, Richie slumped over him and breathing hard. 

Richie nips his neck, just above his shirt collar. “I was kind of fucking winging it.”

“Well, you always were a fast learner.”

Eddie feels an empty sort of calmness the rest of the night, when he finally finishes making dinner and feeds most of it to Richie. When they get into bed a few hours later, he turns on his side and hugs Richie fiercely around the ribs before moving over to turn off his lamp.

“What was that for?” Richie asks.

“For not making me feel like a freak tonight.”

“Well, if you want, I have many reasons why you _are_ a freak. We can go over them at breakfast.”

“Fuck off,” Eddie elbows him, but he falls asleep faster and more soundly than he has in a long time. 

Why shouldn’t he? He feels perfectly fine.

**Author's Note:**

> Am I the first person I've ever met to write a Bev/Eddie scene? I wouldn't call myself a pioneering woman akin to Laura Ingalls, but I'd be fine if YOU wanted to.


End file.
